Lidl
Grocery discount
Europe's biggest grocery discounter, selling a tight range of mostly own-label food and non-food at low prices across 32 countries.
Grocery discountSince 1973Neckarsulm, Germany
How it started
Dieter Schwarz's own discounter.
1973the year it started
Dieter Schwarz opened the first Lidl discount store in Ludwigshafen in 1973, growing it out of the family's food wholesale business.
How big it is
How big is Lidl?
€140.2BStore revenueFY2025
13,000Stores2026
32Countries2026
How it makes money
Sells a short range of mostly own-label groceries at low prices in its own stores.
- Groceries in stores
- Weekly non-food specials
- Online shop
Key moments
- 1973First Lidl store
- 1989Goes international
- 201510,000 stores
- 2016Lidl Plus app
- 2017Enters the US
Its place in Schwarz Group
Three in four euros of group sales.
75.5%of Schwarz Group salesFY2025
Lidl is the group's main business, alongside Kaufland (€36.7B), and gives it the buying scale that its own production, recycling and IT companies serve.
Who it competes with
What Schwarz Group does not disclose
- Profit of Lidl as a whole (only country companies such as Lidl GB report profit)
- Lidl sales by country, apart from markets that file their own accounts
- Online sales of Lidl alone (group reports €1.7B for Lidl and Kaufland combined)
- Sales split between food and non-food
- Customers or basket size
The group behind itSchwarz Group
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Sources
Every number on this page comes from Schwarz Group's own reports.
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